2015 Continued

Please forgive me while I continue to learn this formatting process with our site! To continue on with news from our icon friends; JoAnne Laymon of the St. Theodosia Guild in Stafford, Va. is working with students to create their own color charts for their icons. One of the most basic starts for iconographers is learning the use of color for the icon. The Prosopon Journal carried a list of the colors used but it’s really nice to be able to mix them and place them into a color wheel for continued reference! We all need this, Matushka Jo! I’ll post pictures of their progress and if any of you would like to attend the Stafford Guild meetings, just let me know and perhaps we can carpool?

I’ve been “missing in action” as we took a two and a half week trip out to Santa Fe, New Mexico and then onto Colorado for a surprise Christmas visit with my parents in Sterling! My Mother is a very accomplished iconographer though as of late has chosen to donate all of her collections to me as she is pursuing her craft of painting her Christmas “children”. Mom used to sell her creations at the Smithsonian Institution in D.C. and recently began a project with her friend and sculptor, Mary Unrein, casting the creations in plaster for eventual sale. I ended up trucking a cartload of icon materials, calendars and pigments home with me which I will share with our guild members on Saturday, January 31, 2015!!

Josephine Richards is giving a lecture on icons for her women’s group in Pennsylvania; the lecture features 50 icons, twelve of them written by Josephine, along with how an icon is made. Thirty to forty women will be present and if Jo will kindly send me the dates, perhaps we can trek up there to join her? More to come on this!

April is right around the corner as we look forward to an icon workshop with Vladislav Andrejev (April 20–25, 2015) We are selling out this workshop as registrations and inquiries are coming in. I came home to find two more registrations in our mailbox, so if you’d like to attend, please send in your registration forms soon although they are not due until April 1st, 2015. Vladislav is the original energizer bunny–he is currently in the Ukraine teaching an icon workshop; this is one incredible human being! We are very blessed to learn from him! Both Olga and Vladislav celebrate their birthdays in April so we will have a nice surprise for them, hoping Olga is able to come this time!

Mother Sophronia is selling her beautiful, handmade icon bags and though I haven’t any photos as of yet, Mother had them at our last workshop and sold several. They are lovely bags to protect and carry your icon; this is how Mother supports her important work. She also makes useful kitchen items, aprons, mitts, etc. You can reach her at www.saintelijahhermitage.com or email her at mothersophronia@gmail.com

Our guild meeting is January 31, 2015 from 12 noon until 5pm, please let me know if you are able to attend, in the meantime–Peace to All!